


Let me cure these blackened hearts

by TotemundTabu



Category: I Medici | Medici: Masters of Florence (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Gay Sex, Infidelity, M/M, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 07:23:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9224816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotemundTabu/pseuds/TotemundTabu
Summary: After Lorenzo's death, Marco Bello came back to the family  worried for Cosimo and finds him fainted in Santa Maria del Fiore with amnesia, Cosimo remembers being happy with Bianca and, surprised to be in Florence, convinces Marco Bello to go with him to Rome to find her again. Marco follows him thinking it's better for him to regain memory at his own pace, but finds extremely hard to deny what he actually feels for Cosimo...NC17 | historical homophobia, marriage infidelities, mutual pining, anal sex, gay sex not in detail though, bottom!Cosimo, masturbation, hopefully correct breeds of horses.SHIPS: Marco/Cosimo, Past!Cosimo/Bianca, Contessina>Cosimo





	

**PROMPT:** your horribly cliché amnesia au: at whichever point in canon you prefer cosimo hits his head or whatever you like I don't care for the pretext and he forgets everything that's happened in the last twenty years or so. (possibly stopping at when he was being happy with bianca.) reactions of everyone else is up to you. bonus points if people see the stark difference in between his current times self and his twenties self. + a sort of cosimo/marco, reunion post-finale. ;)

**WARNINGS:** NC17 | historical homophobia, marriage infidelities, mutual pining, anal sex, gay sex not in detail though, bottom!Cosimo, masturbation, hopefully correct breeds of horses.

**SHIPS:** Marco/Cosimo, Past!Cosimo/Bianca, Contessina >Cosimo

**QUOTES FROM:** Unforgiven I, II, II by Metallica. The title is from the opening of the show.

**RESUME:** After Lorenzo's death, Marco Bello came back to the family worried for Cosimo and finds him fainted in Santa Maria del Fiore with amnesia, Cosimo remembers being happy with Bianca and, surprised to be in Florence, convinces Marco Bello to go with him to Rome to find her again. Marco follows him thinking it's better for him to regain memory at his own pace, but finds extremely hard to deny what he actually feels for Cosimo...

**OTHER NOTES:**  
I wanted to thank Patrizia for all the info about horses because the stuff I found online was not as useful as her expert eye.  
Also I realized at the end of the fanfic that Bianca was 20 years A.C. (Avanti Cupola), but Cosimo and Marco Bello met 18 years A.C. =__= I hope it's not a big deal and we can accept this canon divergence.

 

* * *

 

 

**Black heart scarring darker still**

 

* * *

 

 

**I.**

_Through constant pained disgrace,_

_the young boy learns their rules._

 

_With time the child draws in –_

_this whipping boy done wrong,_

_deprived of all his thoughts._

 

The lights glow dim and weak. The yellow melting dresses of the candles and the iron boats filled with oil can all together barely erase the darkness from the smooth polychrome marble floors.

He is bent over the floor, head towards the half-finished altar, the cupola over him opened like the ribcage of a carcass around which ravens flock greedily.

A thin, tired laugh escapes his lips as he returns to pray.

“ _Procul recédant sómnia et nóctium phantásmata; hostémque nostrum cómprime, ne polluántur córpora._ . - his voice trembles and gets sore, hoarse, strangled from choked back tears, he sucks his lips trying to force himself to continue – _Præsta... -_ a sob betrays his words _– Pater omnípotens, per Iesum Christum Dóminum,qui tecum in perpétuum regnat cum Sancto Spíritu.”_

As if.

As if it could actually help him, considering his nightmare was his own life.

“ _Amen...”,_ he swallows and presses the fingers on his forehead, shoulders and chest .

If he could just change it, it all, and in a heartbeat undo his wrongs, cleanse his sins.

He looks at his hands – oh, how does life change us cruelly – for his callosity and scratches and blisters are now gone and the surface is smooth and soft and he can feel the blood dripping off them. Blood and that damned melted gold that chained him up good and obedient.

His cheeks flush in anger for himself, he bites his lips and inner cheeks, feeling the bitter taste of memories returning to him, taking over – she who was as soft as the freedom he never had, she who was pure as he would never be again – and nausea rides his tongue as his eyes fill up in tears salted enough that he could pour them on his wounds to purify himself through the sting.

His eyelids flutter, then he can feel a stabbing pain through his eyes as if a dagger sank into them. He suffocates a groan and tries to stand up, just to fall down over himself, head spinning in a spiralling vertigo. He feels his stomach twist and twirl and he pushes a hand on his mouth to keep himself from puking, while his vision slowly blurs out. Panicking, he puts his hand on the cold marble floor and tries to raise himself up, to move in any way. The mouth of his stomach betrays him and soon his mouth is filled in bile and floor, burning it, with his eyes watery, he tries to contain himself, stares at the crucifix, and then throws it on the ground with a tensed twitch of his neck, right before falling next to it.

He can barely distinguish the lines of the wooden crucifix as his eyes lose light.

The last thing he sees is the arm of the dead Christ, extended towards the two empty sides next to him, as if he could, in any way, escape his destiny through a friendly hand.

The first he sees again, when he lifts his heavy eyelids, is Marco. He stares at him with a certain fond severity and Cosimo is not sure if he's smiling at him or if it's just a shadow on his face. Ah, was he always so old?

His head pulsates in pain and he slowly brings a hand on it with a groaned whine.

Marco chuckles, “You should learn to not drink beverages we didn't control beforehand, you are aware, aren't you?”.

Cosimo stiffens, now sure he got impudent; why was referring to him in such an informal way?

He shivers, realizing they are in his rooms... how is that possible? A stab clenches his head and he emits a low hiss, before forcing himself to think about an answer.

“... thank you for the heartfelt and unsolicited advice, Marco Bello. - he whines again, trying to bring himself to sit – What happened?”

“Poison, probably. - he blinks slowly, furrowing his eyebrows, as if he were confused – But the physician didn't exclude you might have been, well...”

“Well?”, he asks, annoyed.

“...drunk.”

“In the house of the lord? - he blurts, almost outraged – Don't say blasphemy!”

Marco Bello frowns again, now his eyebrows look like they are trying to leave his face through his forehead, rising and rising.

“Cosimo. - he sits on the bedside – Are you... feeling fine?”

Cosimo is caught unarmed by that sudden kindness, and confidence. Marco seems worried, genuinely and tenderly so, more than a servant should or would. He swallows, somehow feeling in his guts a weird uncomfortable warmth in seeing Marco's hand so close to his own, with just the thick damask sheet to separate them. His eyes are charmed by the long veins on Marco's hands like branches of trees, dark violet, and all the scars on his skin. He never looked so old and tired.

As he is thinking, he feels Marco’s fingers under his chin, raising it, keeping it on his wrapped index, while his thumb moved on Cosimo's lips, caressing them. His half-lidded eyes look so soft now.

“...I was so worried for you.”

Cosimo stiffens and then jumps behind, hitting his back against the bedhead, and staring at Marco horrified. He looks scared like a deer or a fox caught in a cold iron trap when he couldn't even imagine hunters to exist. His heart pounds in his chest loud as a drum.

“What are you doing!”

Marco Bello tilts his head, confused, “...the usual?”

“The usual since when! - he almost laughs – You are lucky I won't make a word of it with my father!”

“...your father?”

“My father! - he tries to stand up from the bed, but his legs almost fail him – Ah, why are we here in Florence again? - his voice gets weak and trembles – We... we should be in Rome... I should be in Rome, what will she think if I went away without even a goodbye?”

Marco Bello stares at him frozen, kept together just by shivers shaking his spine.

His voice comes out strangled, “...Cosimo, who are you speaking about?”

“Bianca, no? Whom else?”

Marco puts a hand on Cosimo's wrist just to see it being shoved away, brutally and ruthlessly, and for some reason as he can't hold Cosimo he feels he can't hold himself together either, like a mosaic without lines.

The corner of his mouth bent in a sharp smirk.

“I’ll go to call the physician, _my lord_. - he rolls those two words between his teeth as if he wanted to grind them – I'm sure they are more qualified than me to answer the questions you'll bring them.”

Cosimo feels a strong guilt taking his heart, as he thinks maybe he oversaw and overreacted, maybe Marco was honestly worried. It just freaked him out that... that gesture. His lips somehow sting now, they tingle, as if the void on them was too cold and too sharp.

“Wait-”

Marco raises his eyes, “Yes?”

“I need you to prepare our horses. Me and you, we return to Rome, today. But don't tell it to Lorenzo, he... he can't know...”, he begs, his hands clenching onto Marco Bello's soft sleeves. Their warmth is somewhat comforting but he is unsure why. He seems about to cry as he continues, “He wouldn't understand, Marco... he is all … all about lust and lewd acts. He can't understand how I feel.”

Marco Bello moves a hand as if he wanted to hold or to caress his cheek, but as he sees the frowned sceptical look on Cosimo's face, he instead brings the hand to his heart and mumbles, “I'll obey, my lord.” with a grieving whisper before leaving the room.

 

*

 

“What do you mean he doesn't remember?”, Contessina blurts out, her eyes as big as the moon, shock tingling through her.

“He seems to suffer from a mild memory loss, my lady, it is not uncommon after hitting the head or being sick... it could also be stressful events that... - Marco Bello clears his voice - ...took his brother away.”

Contessina nods in understanding but she keeps playing with her fingers, squishing her palms and sighing, walking up and down the room, trying to think of a solution.

“And up to when... to which event he seems to remember?”

Marco Bello swallows, “He remembers the young girl in Rome but not saying her goodbye.”

Contessina doesn't comment: of course, god wouldn't allow her at least the good luck of having him not have fallen in love with someone else, no, instead, he brought him back to when that love was fresh and strong in taste and smell in his heart. 

“What does the physician suggest?”

“To... go along with it, actually.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“He said that it should stop on its own, that probably this is all black bile that came up during the poisoning and made him melancholic, your grace, so when the humours will equilibrate again, his memory shall return... - he mumbles, rolling his eyes and getting a compassionate look from Contessina – That's what he said, your grace.”

She breathes in and lets out a small sigh, “So we should let him live his twenties while me and Piero try to make the bank survive? Is that the plan?”

“With all due respect, I'm sure if he could... get closure, he'd return back.”

“Closure? - now her voice is hurt – I may understand his affection for this laundress, but he barely forgot her years after our marriage, then again to bring here in our home, another redhead with wide hips and a sharp tongue.”

Marco Bello doesn't dare to point out, hair colour aside, that description could fit her too. In a way, he always thought the reason Cosimo didn't fully love Contessina resided in how much she cared and refused to give in, she was resilient and stubborn, while the other women Cosimo had were all sharp in wit and words but dressed in the veil of low expectations and detachment from dreams and hopes. 

Contessina was a true Medici, instead, with iron for bones and stone for the head.

Marco Bello always found a tiny bit funny how similar those two could be, how close they could have grown, if bitterness didn't take away all of Cosimo's ability to show tenderness.

Oh, well.

“Maybe, my lady, maybe it is good luck, though. You could see him now, how he was before.”

“Before what?”

“Disappointment, I'd suppose.”

Contessina seems to consider it and weight it out, then nods and mumbles, “Tell Piero about this, we don't want him to tell it out, and tell him we are the de Bardi family visiting as his father asked us... I'll talk with Michelozzo about that project with the monastery, Cosimo will want it to be all set and started when he comes back to sanity.”

He lowers his eyes, unsure how to put it delicately, so he goes for his usual bluntness, “He expressed the desire to return to Rome.”

“Then be it. - she mumbles – But, tomorrow... now, for today, keep him here, so the physician may check on him and make sure he'd be able to travel.”

Marco Bello smiles, standing up, knowing she wants to meet him, after all, that Cosimo she never got to meet, whose eyes shone like a doe's and whose heart beat so loud, worn on the sleeve all the time. 

He stands up and starts to walk but then she reaches him and holds onto him, “But, please, when you return... bring me back my husband.”

“I'll do all I can to assure it.”

“We can manage the bank for some days but not weeks or months without him. He is the spine of this family, its trunk.”

Marco Bello looks at her like a patient father would to a daughter lying out of shame for her own feelings.

“There would be nothing wrong in wanting him back for other reasons too, my lady.”

She stiffs, squeezes her hands and bites her lips red as the grape under the August sun. She trembles, “A woman has the right to her euphemisms and reserve.” .

And Marco doesn't comment further.

He didn't mean to offend her, rather, to show her she could admit her weakness, as he would have liked to. She was not the only forgotten one.

Sure, Cosimo remembered him as a faithful servant, maybe almost a friend... but it was only later that... well, not that it mattered right then.

At the time, there was only Bianca, a laundress who was smart enough to not love him more than she loved her neck. Giovanni's orders were very clear: had she refused the gold, Marco would have had to make her take a long bath in the Tiber, keeping her head down if necessary.

Drowning a laundress named “white”, sure that family was addicted to cruel irony.

He couldn't have condemned her choice if he tried, after all she was as world-wise and street smart as they come, had heart and dignity broken over time sure more than once; when she saw him with the money, she didn't even seem surprised, sad, wounded even maybe, but not surprised. She was way too pragmatic for Cosimo, after all.

Marco Bello couldn't avoid thinking, were she rich or noble, she would have made a daughter-in-law much favourited for Giovanni than Contessina, who had the free spirit of a stallion and the idealism he tried to break in his own son. Irony over irony, pouring.

Cosimo, who was so soft-hearted, ah, he could have loved her but he would have never understood her. And maybe this was why he loved her.

Because she was nothing like him.

After all, that was something Marco Bello could understand way too well, because he was the same.

He swallows his thoughts and knocks on the door of the now-again-young lord, seeing him trying to find some clothes. Probably he can't recognize half of his wardrobe.

Marco Bello wonders if he looked at himself in one of those mirrors they bought in Venice, they were terribly expensive, a technology of crystal glass made reflecting with tin and mercury, not like those shiny bronze or copper plates older people had. They found some in some shops of the town and Marco Bello snorted, asking why would someone even want to look at his own face in such detail, Cosimo whispered in his ear it would have been nice to abandon themselves to lustful acts in front of one of those and Marco Bello tensed, embarrassed enough for Cosimo to laugh at him and buy a couple of those weird gizmos.

He wonders if he should say it or not.

After all, it could be a shock.

Cosimo turns to him, and looks furious, “Why did you cut my hair?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He grabs a lock, “I see the length. Why did you do that! - then he lowers his eyes and... pouts? – I must look like an old man, like my father...”

Marco Bello chuckles, “The physician had to check your head, my lord, it will grow back.”

God, he shouldn't find it cute to see a grown man gesturing like a teen and taking out again that voice, that pitch, so intense and passionate. He could feel blood stir in his groin. He begs himself to keep some self-control. 

Cosimo seems to calm down and shakes his head, “You...you have to forgive me, also for before, I'm being a bit nervous, I think it's the bruise up here... I'm sure as I see her, I'll be better. - he mumbles – I also can't find my papers, where did you put them?”

Marco Bello chokes a grunt.

“I'll bring you some.”

“Yes, but I had drawings there. Of her! - he smiles, so tenderly, so bright, like nothing could hurt him in the whole universe – Would, would you like me to show you?”

Marco Bello stiffens, awkwardly coughing, “I'll search for them, then, probably the servants put them somewhere when undoing our bags.”

“Ah, doesn't matter, I'll bring other new sheets with me. - Cosimo smiles – And it will be just me and you, no mission, no father, no Lorenzo. Nobody could stop me this time. I'm going to visit the ancient markets and monuments, the ancient ruins again! And then to her...”

His smile is so genuine and honest that Marco can feel his guts tear apart.

How will he have the heart to kill that Cosimo again?

He did it once, unbeknownst of him, in the darkness, like a roman soldier paying Judas to betray and like Judas himself accepting Giovanni's orders to betray, and he could barely forgive himself for doing so, even though he knew that fling would have no future or a bad one, even though he knew it was cruel … and not for the orders, not really.

He wanted that smile for himself.

And he did, shortly after.

He feels ashamed now, thinking about his actions, feeling his reasons being rotten like roots of a plant that, caught a disease, can only produce sickly disgusting fruit. A bittersweet aftertaste fucks his mouth over, and he sourly plays it off fine.

Cosimo grins and grabs Marco Bello's sleeves again, “I'll see her soon...”

“The... the physician, though, actually, recommended you rest until tomorrow. We may leave at dawn, but you should rest for now, to make sure you don't fall on the road.”

“But...”

“Bianca won't have much use of a sick man.”, he points out, biting his own tongue, and Cosimo seems to meditate on it.

“As you say... - he mumbles, bummed out, still with a certain childish pitch to it, as he was too wilful to actually give up, but he could see a reason behind that – Could you through, bring me something to read? I don't feel like laying down just yet...”

“For sure, one of your Latin poets?”

“Cicero... or Lucretius... no, no Catullus.”

Marco Bello shakes his head and smiles, “Of course.”

“Marco...”, Cosimo calls, before he leaves the room to head to the library.

“Yes?”

He is unsure of what to say and seems to shut down: thank you, perhaps? you were truly kind beyond your duty? I appreciate how you worried for me? I felt like you wanted to kiss me before, isn't it funny and why does my heart not cease beating?

“May I also... be brought something to eat?”

“We have some guests over, if you'd please to meet them.”

A grimace, “Eh, say to my father it'd be too exhausting for my condition... - he seems sad now – Did he even come to see me?”

“He is travelling, my lord.”

“I see. Better so. - a sigh – But no, please, do bring me something here: a quail, some eggs, whatever you find. I'm starving.”

His appetite also seemed to have returned to the one of his younger days, Marco Bello notes with a certain joy, lately Cosimo seemed to not find any joy in eating not even the most refined recipes, and after his father's departure even the grape sweet flatbread, which he usually ate beyond measure, couldn’t cheer him up, if anything it made his mood ill. Seeing him actually enthusiastic about food was heart-warming and heart-breaking all together.

“I'll bring my lord whatever I can find.”

“No need to overdo!”

“You... you need to get your strength back, I'll be here eating while you eat, if you don't mind, just...to make sure you can munch well.”

Cosimo seems to relax, “If you haven't eaten, come here with me and keep me company. You'll have a better meal than usual and I might enjoy some company.”

“If you won't find it disrespectful.”

“...some... things may be. - he mumbles, thinking about the thumb on his lips and he can feel again that warmth catching him and setting his cheeks alight – Ah, but, but you worried for me and I'm bored here, so, please, do join me.”

Marco Bello nods slowly and smiles at him.

When he returns with the food, Cosimo eats it like he didn't in years, stuffing his face with the eggs and leeks with bread, tearing the flesh away from the quail, licking his fingers after honey fruit. Marco blinks a couple of times, wondering if he's having hallucinations in seeing him in such a good mood and so spontaneous, with his lips stained with juices and the fingertips sticky with honey.

He's so incredibly cute that Marco swallows trying to suffocate the temptation and stares at his dish in contemplation of the void.

He can't make a move on him, not like that, not while Cosimo doesn't even remember...

It was too early, too soon, too...

Cosimo turns towards him and frowns, “You look red, are you working a fever?”

Marco shakes his head, “No, don't worry... A servant can't get sick.”

Cosimo seems hesitant, as if something felt wrong to him, deeply misplaced. A fear rises through his fingertips as he lifts his hand and places it on Marco's.

He is sure he should say something, he wants to say something, he stares down on his hand, eyebrows furrowed and eyes watery, filled with doubt. And yet he didn't know how to speak.

Marco looks at him as if wondering if he knows, if he has realized – but what? What is he supposed to know? And why is Marco so sad and tired and... and his lips look so good he feels driven to fall on them and kiss him.

He moves away in a jolt, as the thought crosses his mind making him disgusted with himself.

Why would he even think about something like that? With a man? With Marco? When he's in love?

He shouldn't be thinking such disgusting, lewd thoughts of such sodomite nature... well, but then again Donatello was a sodomite, wasn't he? And he was so talented, nobody could doubt God loved him and blessed him with his grace regardless, and despite his sin he didn't punish him, but instead gave him fame and beauty...

So, so maybe.

He shakes his head, horrified with himself, outraged: he loves someone else, doesn't he? He shouldn't think something like this.

Marco Bello puts a hand over his forehead, touching it and moving his now short hair slightly.

It's hard not to touch him like he would, like he is used to do by now when alone; just a couple nights before, he took him again and he felt Cosimo arch and beg under him, he saw him riding him, he felt the heat inside him, he tasted his sweet kisses and possessive arms.

And, the Lord may have mercy on him, seeing his innocent and happy self back makes his blood boil in the need to take him again, over and over. He remembers still how vocal, how overwhelmed he would get the first times, when he was still, after all, an inexperienced boy.

“You seem colder than this morning. Do you wish for me to call the physician for a visit?”

“No, that won't be necessary, thank you... - he lowers his eyes, stubbornly avoiding Marco's – I'll rest, though.”

“Do I bring you a book?”

“No, no, I'll be fine. I just need to sleep.”

Marco obeys slightly against his will, but nods and goes, almost pushed out of the room with a long list of things to prepare for the day after, from the horses to the money to take with them. Marco Bello makes also sure to inform only Contessina, Piero, Lucrezia and Ugo of the condition affecting Cosimo so not to allow gossip flocking around between the servants.

Piero and Lucrezia seem more than willing to play their part, while Ugo goes to the library to see if the physicians may have overlooked something and it'd be rather a good idea to try with some blood transfer or maybe leeches. 

Marco Bello tries to insist again for Cosimo to join the guests for dinner, but he forgot how more stubborn he was when young ; Cosimo refuses firmly like a mule and, instead, falls asleep between paper and charcoal, staining his hands and his face black just to wake up in the middle of the night.

It's cold and the chimney in his room barely helps, also his stomach is growling again. He figures he'll try to find something to munch and, maybe, search for some of his notebooks he can't find. But the house looks different, fuller. There are new paintings and frescos and tapestry which he does not remember at all and they look so lively! So modern! One seems to hint a perspective and Cosimo stares at it, amazed. The figures also look so much fuller and more classical than they used to be... he can't fully explain to himself how all of that beauty arrived there. He guesses maybe his father got some of them from a good deal while he was in Rome with Lorenzo, but so many? He usually was pretty stingy about money and art...

Could have it been his way to show him he could be both a banker and an artist? Maybe, he was surely enough sly to try to persuade him of that, as if leaving him no choice weren't a condition sufficient to push his shoulders against the wall.

He could still hope he'd pick Lorenzo but – trying to be realistic, it was highly improbable, Lorenzo had a better eye for business and money, but he had no ambition, no care for power and power is visibility and advertising and love for Florence.

He sighs, heavily, his fingerprints softly brushing the tapestry.

“I see you are up.”

He turns, then frowns, “...you'd be?”

Her expression seems hurt, for some reason, which Cosimo can't understand. Did they perhaps meet before? Was she the wife of some nobleman or of an important client?

“Contessina de Bardi. - she says, trying to smile behind a sad look – I was very worried for your well-being.”

“Oh, you shouldn't! - he smiles back, then shyly looks away – I am sorry I couldn't attend the dinner with you, but I'm sure my brother Lorenzo was a great host.”

She stiffens and then softens painfully as if an arrow crossed her ribcage. Her lips quiver.

“He was...”

For a moment, Cosimo wonders if Lorenzo may have overstepped some boundaries with that noble woman but he didn't deem his brother reckless enough to.

She stares at him, as if he's something she never saw and yet knows well, like one would stare at a unicorn if they ever saw one. He laughs it out, embarrassment rising, and smiles to her, ruffling his hair – well, trying to, still not used to the short cut.

She places a hand on his arms.

“Well, aren't you... different?”

“Did we meet before? - he frowns, she looks young but is at least ten if not fifteen years older than he is – When I was a child?”

She nods, nervously weak, “Yes, yes, we did at the time.”

Cosimo grins, “Oh, did Lorenzo walk you around the villa? We have a lot of beautiful art masterpieces!”

“Do you like art that much?”

“More than anything in the world.”, he claims, his eyes shining with stars she didn't know he could reflect.

“These works are truly beautiful, yes...”

“One day, I'll make even more beautiful ones.”, he claims, confident all of a sudden and just for a moment, staring proud at the works on the walls.

She knew he cared for art but mostly thought it was about Florence and glory and she overheard some rumours, that was it, but seeing him so young and full of hopes and dreams tore her heart apart.

What did Giovanni do to that boy?

What did Life do to him?

“Which kind of artist will you be, sir? A painter?”

“A painter, yes, but I'd love also to be an architect. Nowadays a man can, no, has to be, many things at once. - he laughs – But sculpture is not my forte. Too harsh.”

It feels so weird hearing Cosimo considering something too harsh, she feels a bit like chuckling at the idea.

“And, tell me, have you ever worked with artists?”

“For a while, actually, I was in a workshop in Rome. - he grins, then grabs her hands – Oh, my lady, you'll never imagine: I met Donatello, the great Donatello. And some of his friends too. They were so talented...”

Contessina knows she'll regret asking, but in a way she feels it's better to put her own hands on the dagger that will soon anyway arrive.

“And do you have any muse?”

He blushes. Cosimo. He blushes, lets out a giggle, rubs his nape and tilts the neck like a shy kid, “Well, yes, yes, there is this woman...”

“Is she a nobleman?”

“Oh, oh, no, she is a laundress, but, oh... - he stares at the painting of a woman and can imagine Bianca's face in place of that – Oh, I love her.”

Contessina bends on the side, keeping a hand near her chest to stay still and firm as possible, and she catches back the tears that were about to fill her eyes. Oh, no, she won't cry.

“I'm going to marry her. - Cosimo comments, smiling, naive as they come – I'm know my father doesn't approve, but he can't control me. I don't want to be a banker, I don't want to marry whoever he picks... and even so, if he could, he could do one, not both! Nobody is so cruel to not concede anything to their own son, breaking two dreams at once. My father may be stern but he loves me, he'll have to accept...”

Now she sees.

She never held grunge towards Giovanni up till then. And now she can't stop wishing he'd have a heart even if it meant for her own would have been broken, after all.

The Cosimo she came to love, the one she met beyond all, she glimpsed at through the cracks over the years, cracks in a marble statue Giovanni trapped him in. The tender idealism, the intense way he loved, the need to be just in such a cruel world it was all there, all behind those rumbles.

Oh, he was so much easier to love looking at him in full light and not behind the masks.

There he was, a shattered child, Isaac butchered by Abraham to prove his faith to a Goddess named Florence.

Suddenly, she feels so selfish for wanting him to remember, to remember what happened but also their family and her, but what else could she do? Were Cosimo to die, so would his family and his bank.

And she knows she is not strong enough to live without him again.

“I heard you'll return to Rome soon.”

“I will.”

“Be prudent and be happy.”, she murmurs, bowing.

Cosimo looks at her with a sweetness he never showed her before, not even when Piero was born; because at least now she did not represent all he had to accept and bend to giving up his dreams, at least now he is looking at her as herself.

“You are a woman of rare qualities; I hope you shall be happy too.”

She curves her lips in a sad smile, “Oh, I am, my lord...”

“You have a kind husband?”

“The kindest. - she shakes her head – He is not the warmest man, but he... he listens to me, as no man ever did nor before nor after. He respects me. Sometimes I do forget that, because the flesh is weak and men can do mistakes... but I've come to think there are two sides of the same coin all of the time.”

“You are quite the forgiving wife...”

“A woman in love can do just that: forgive.”

“Maybe God wouldn't though...”, he mumbles, now with a dark thought in the back of his mind.

Contessina gives a small laugh, “God is way more forgiving than a woman, he does because he wants, not because he can't do otherwise. Nobody stays unforgiven too long... except, of course, than by himself.”

Cosimo nods, his eyes glimpsing again at the painting. He can't see Bianca anymore, just the plain painted face, then his eyes search for another painting and fall on a victorious knight. He shivers.

“I'd suppose so...”

He shouldn't be thinking about Marco Bello. He should be thinking about his Bianca... but her face seems to fade as if he hadn’t seen her in years, as burnt parchment turns to ashes.

Marco Bello, instead, is incandescent in his mind as brand new, warmed, on fire, glowing in the darkness.

He wishes he could understand himself …

“You should go to bed now. - Contessina says, gently – You have a long, long travel tomorrow. Did your servants prepare?”

“I'll go just with my assistant Marco Bello.”

“Oh. - she seems surprised, as she swallows – Are you two close?”

“As much as one would expect.”

Contessina hesitates to speak, as if she wants to move on a very uncertain ground, fearing avalanches and quicksand. She looks at him with a glimmering pity in her eyes.

“There is no bigger pain than solitude for men. They are social animals, after all.”

“Aristotle?”

She laughs, “Could be, I thought it was common sense.”

 

*

 

When Cosimo returns to bed, night flows slowly towards the morning, hours sweetly passing and leaving him behind.  _O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!_

If just thoughts could leave him alone, instead they linger, they put roots and dig through his heart opening it like a ripe pomegranate. Pieces of him roll and shatter on the ground in blood-tinted drops.

He sighs deeply, the burden of time over his chest.

He shouldn't, he shouldn't be thinking about such lewd, vulgar things... sure, he was not one to judge when others did them, but him? Doing it? And why imagining it with a servant who had been with them maybe just since some months, which he found nice the company of but who he surely didn't consider an actual friend. Maybe he was... he could be. Maybe in some years he'll come to consider him as part of himself.

Ah, what is he thinking about? As if it were a matter of time!

He loves Bianca, doesn't he?

The heart shall guide the hand, the head shall keep it in check ahead, and yet? Yet he is bothered, deeply, uncomfortably shaken awake, by remembering Marco's scent and the cold shade in his blue eyes.

There is no peace that he can find with that thought sitting on his heart like a persistent nightmare.

And the idea of him haunts him down like a wolf a deer in the greenest darkest forest.

He places his hand over his chest, breathing in and out as to calm himself down, as to welcome the rest he hopes to take over him; but then, then his heart betrays him with strong deep drums that echo inside his cage, and then, then his breath gets warmer in the cold rooms and he can breathe in the scent of the lemons from the gardens. He closes his eyes, while slowly his hand descends on his abdomen and then groin, trembling over his manhood.

He tenses up, arches, feelings his hips like cords of a vielle, bones turning to stone, flesh melting in heat. Cosimo shivers, feeling the warm blood rush down to his abdomen, collect in his groin, unpleasantly predictable.

He can't, he knows he can't.

That surely would have been a sin to confess way beyond a couple of Ave Marias and Pater Nosters but he couldn't bring himself to stop, and easily and quickly the slight brush became his hand gripping himself tight, jerking up and down as arousal grows and the mind gets weak, dizzy, in the overlooked darkness of the night.

His veins hard and tense and swollen with desire, his flesh is lit on fire by bliss, and all he can do is close his eyes, as his hand jerks his cock faster, trying to suppress those thoughts and just imagining them realer, closer.

He stiffs, whines and moans coming out chocked and constricted out of his mouth, he grits them in his teeth, he silently begs for release.

His face comes back to him.

And now it's not his own hand on his shaft, it's Marco's. And it's his the voice he hears in his ears, far too realistic for him to understand how he could imagine it, him dropping low sensual words, making him anticipate what he would have done to him, and Cosimo knows he shouldn't find any of that blissful, but he does.

He does and his hips startle and his cock twitches and he bites his lips, suffocating the name he can't say but keeps thinking, and brings himself to the verge, coming all over his hand and abdomen, spilling like a waterfall.

He just wishes his body could be calm now, cold and unsensitive, but the afterglow still tingles and lingers on his tip, like a tremble, and every movement of the blanket sends him through sparks again; and, ah, the most humiliating thing, he can feel a want – no, beyond a want, more of a need – taking him aback, almost frightening him.

He is unsure of why or how, but he feels inside him something tingling, unsatisfied, with a deep, undeletable sensation of emptiness.

He closes his eyes and forces himself to sleep, just to wake up again, finding himself rubbing against the sheets in a needy motion, same feeling of emptiness inside and a sensation of being purely made of dirt climbing all the way to his chest.

Of course as Marco Bello comes, he makes it in time to cool himself down with freezing cold water and a lot of prayers. Marco Bello seems bothered by something, as he enters the room, and he looks like he barely slept too.

Which type of thoughts may keep him away, Cosimo is unsure of.

“I thought to found you asleep...”

“I was awaken by the morning birds singing.”, he lies, finishing dressing.

For a moment, he thinks he can almost feel a look lingering on him, on that portion of his back still naked while he puts on the blouse, on the way his hips bent gently to let the fabric fall on the skin. He moves near the neck to pull out the hair for the blouse, just to find out it's short, once again.

“Are you still upset about the cut?”

“I don't care about these... feminine things, I would have just liked to be aware of it happening.”

Marco Bello chuckles, “It suits you like this though.”

“You think so?”

“I do.”

Although, he adds in his mind, I do miss sometimes to pull you by them from behind.

 

**II.**

_Lay beside me, tell me what they've done..._

_Speak the words I wanna hear to make my demons run._

_The door is locked now, but it's opened if you're true._

 

_The door cracks open_

_but there's no sun shining through ..._

 

The light was blinding and, yet, cold. The horses complain about the stones and small rivers on the road, making their ride bumpy and frequently interrupted by whined tantrums and tired neighs. Cosimo feels sick quickly due to lack of sleep and the nausea keeps him without will and tired.

It should take them five days circa to arrive to Rome; being just the two of them, instead of bringing servants sure made the whole process way quicker.

Marco Bello's Berber lets out a deep voiced neigh and a fiery kick whenever he can, rushing and galloping like thunder at every turn it gets. It was pride, volcanic, as its owner. Cosimo has to struggle to keep up, his dark chestnut Maremmano was lively but next to that Barb it became almost shy, taken by a soft recalcitrance, slowing down and forcing him to wait.

Cosimo smiles upon seeing on him Marco Bello's glance. Only after does he lower his head, as shy as his horse, going past him and trying to not cross their looks again.

Marco Bello appears hurt. But Cosimo can't grasp why.

The hills around them bend sweetly, building roads in the horizon, forests scattered and wet in green hid the end of the sky. The breeze was cold but sparkling, refreshing, Cosimo breathes it in and smiles.

His Rome, his beautiful Rome.

He can't wait to see it again, it all: the art, the beauty, the lover.

All of it, all of it, he wants to take it to the lips of his heart and make his soul drunk off of it.

Marco Bello sighs, staring at Cosimo, intently, wondering how much more time it will take him to remember, to realize. Would have he remembered then it all? Also the accusations and the pain? Would have he remembered the fights and the heartbreak? Or just the steaming sex and the fragile heartbeats shared in a room without witnesses?

How much love could be forgotten? Apparently, it was easy.

And, in a way, Marco Bello wonders if Cosimo wanted to, if he wanted to forget about him and them.

Marco knows Cosimo sometimes still felt guilty and would confess their sins, though not to any priest in Florence, rather to one in a small town, right out of the city. Maybe after suspecting him of accusing his brother Lorenzo with ill intentions, it was less painful to Cosimo to forget than thinking he may have loved his father's killer and his brother's accuser.

He struggles to send away the thought that maybe, pushing him on a bed, kissing him, taking him, could bring him back, make memory return to him. Marco was no physician, but he knew well that the mind can command the body well and when the mind wants something it takes it and that maybe Cosimo wanted to forget so much he did, but Marco also knows that there is no better way to get a man or woman back into something they wanted to forget than reminding them of the sweet part, the honey, the passionate tenderness. Lovers have a way to call each other back, even when one may not totally want to, with caresses tender on the jaw and deep teeth marks on the shoulders. 

Perhaps, he thinks, perhaps Cosimo would be back … but what if he were to not want to remember at all? And then? He could kill him on the spot, well no, Marco would be able to outwit him in battle, but then he'd have to escape and never see him. Again. Once again.

Oh, no, no, that Marco couldn't have accepted.

Cosimo laughs, “Marco Bello, what are you thinking?”

“Hm?”

“You are all brooding. - he says, then imitating his expression – No surprise you scare the ladies so.”

“Do I?”

“You should act like Lorenzo, he's charming, he always smiles and kisses their hands, gives them flowers from the gardens...”

“Does he?”, Marco seems amused.

“I remember once, as I was a child, not older than twelve, I saw him in the garden with a maid, he gave her an orange and invited her to smell its sweet scent, then he kissed the zest and mumbled something in her ear. She went all red and chirped shyly before letting him kiss her. - he laughs – I wish I would have grown as smooth, but I truly couldn't.”

“You are very pure at heart, Cosimo. Smoothness is for those who play games.”

“Probable... I'm unsure. I suppose heart would serve me well when I become a painter.”

“Are you still sure to call off your father's will to have you lead the bank?”

“Lorenzo will. - he seems stiff, as if he is trying to convince himself of it – He will, he wants to. I, I'll be more than that.”

In a way, he hates him for forgetting.

In another, he can't do much more than hating himself for wanting him to remember.

“We should find a place where to sleep. - Marco advises – The sun is setting.”

Cosimo nods, looking around as a fresh rain starts pouring, making the green all around them bright and bringing out the scent of the world. Everything is glimmering, shimmering, light fragmented and shattered on the water as the orange dense light of the sunset caresses the hills.

He turns to Marco and sees him smiling, pulling the reins and convincing him to move further.

Their hoods get soaked very quickly as the rain starts to become stubborn, insistent, but they manage to see soon a little tavern with a little hay house next and a good stable. Cosimo rushes to the entrance, eager to sit near a chimney and warm up; Marco Bello shakes his head and brings the horses to the stable, finding them a nice place, taking away every garment which may give an idea of the richness of the owner, and kisses Patrizio and Brunello on the nose for a good night.

When he enters, he sees Cosimo looking around nervously, almost scared by the fauna around him. He chuckles a bit, remembering how much of a scaredy-cat he used to be. He is almost endearing as he stares at a one-eyed bloke and a guy without a hand or the guys who clearly never bathed in the last year and some who were stained in blood.

Cosimo turns to him, “...should we change...place?”

“Here is fine. I'm scary for the both of us, but play along.”

“Play along?”

Marco Bello then moves to the host and says without formalities nor manners, “We need a room for me and my friend.”

“Which business take you here?”

“None of yours.”

The host squints his eyes, “I don't make questions, but you make no trouble, clear?”

“We will be quiet, now I see no pulpit so stop the homily. If I wanted a sermon, I'd go to a church to sleep.”

“Fine, fine.”

“And bring us something to eat.”

Cosimo is already thinking about how much he'd love some deer, but the two options the host gives them are beans and bread soup and a cabbage and hare soup. Cosimo pouts trying to not give it to see and observes as Marco Bello picks the first option for both, but requires firmly also some wine, “and make it warm because it rains like the bible is pissed out there”.

He sits and waits for Marco Bello who looks around slowly, cautiously controlling people around them. Around them, the smell of wood wetted in poured wine and smoke from burned herbs – Cosimo can feel the voices of the people around them all bent from alcohol, and not in a funny way, rather in a creepy, sly way. 

He sinks the spoon in his soup, as the host comes and puts the bowls on the table, unamused.

“It's all water.”

“Oh, is the princess unsatisfied?”, he scoffs.

Marco Bello glares at Cosimo, then turns, “You have to excuse him. When he was younger he used to work for a noble family before they fell in disgrace, and they fed the servants such rich dishes, he got all spoiled.”

“I see. - the host looks at him – If he complains again, I'll grill him a mouse.”

Marco Bello doesn't comment and Cosimo returns to his soup, looking ashamed.

“Be aware, this stuff may betray us. Another mistake and they might cut your throat at night to steal some gold.”

“I'm sorry. - Cosimo sighs – But it is all watery.”

“I have still an apple or two in the bag, I'll give them to you once in the room, but now eat, you need to warm up.”

“You are so motherly with me... - he laughs a bit – One would say you act like a mother hen.”

“Your protection is my responsibility. I have to get you whole to Rome and back.”

Cosimo's eyes shine in a wet gleam.

A thought, a thought crosses them softly, lasciviously, lustfully.

He lowers his eyelids, stares at Marco's hands, then, he squints his eyes lightly, as if he tried to understand, to know, and then raises them and they meet Marco's lips. Cosimo stiffens, shakes his head slowly, pained in the eyes and the chest, and stands up.

“I trust you...”, he forces himself to say.

Marco swallows, “I know you do.”

“I- may I- can we go to the room already? I am tired.”

“Eat before or tomorrow you'll faint on the horse.”

“Yes... right.”

“Yes.”, he repeats, firmly.

Cosimo obliges, trying to stop pouting and follows Marco Bello to the room upstairs, climbing the wooden crackly steps with little noises creeping out the thin floors and walls. Marco Bello pulled together the pallets under Cosimo's questioning look, and put the woollen blankets only on one of those.

“Won't you feel cold?”

“You tend to... - he interrupts himself – I am used to this.”

Cosimo frowns, “I see.”

Marco Bello avoids Cosimo's look, stubbornly staring between the ground and the void. Cosimo feels almost a clench in his stomach, his bones feel suddenly tight and small for no reason at all, but he can _feel_ it, that something is wrong and lingers between them in the thin whim of the air. It stays there, trembling between them, something that tastes like grief.

He has, for a moment, the horrific thought that Marco may have noticed something different in his look, a libidinous gleam, a glance still lethargic but soon to burst from eagerness.

Marco swallows, then slowly brings his eyes on him, low to high, meeting his look last.

“There is enough for both, though.”

“As I said, I...”

Cosimo moves closer, places a hand on Marco's arm, “I know what you said, but... you can skip the formalities. We are here as two servants and so we have to seem until Rome, we can't afford my father's name over us. It'd be just... - he frowns, moving his hand slightly, feeling a familiar warmth in touching him, and Marco Bello seems not unpleased, rather, his breath gets harder - ...stifling.”

He bends his head, as if a thought, a memory, still blurred, knocked on a door inside his mind. And he tries to catch it, sand between trembling hands.

Marco follows his movement hesitating, dawdling a moment, and he seems to wait for Cosimo, unsure. His eyes look almost sad, but not like a young maid's eyes made tender and soft from a feeble fainted wish, rather, the eyes of an old man, disappointed and emptied of light.

Marco Bello moves a hand on Cosimo, before seeming to aim for his waist, then instead placing it on the shoulder.

“In public, sure, respect could give us away, but in private I would still urge you to not forget who you are... who we both are.”

Cosimo chuckles, “I am me and you are you. - his hand still doesn't leave Marco Bello's arm – The rest comes after.”

Marco Bello shakes his head, “You are a dreamer, Cosimo.”

And he feels something wrong.

He remembers smiling and laughing as Bianca told him the same, then a sour, dark aftertaste. He feels his heart aching.

And now, now he can't laugh, if not bitterly.

“...I guess that's what I am, yes.”

His hand slightly holds Marco's arm and then he can feel the other man's thumb caressing his neck ever so gently, barely brushing. And yet, yet it feels like he should do it much stronger and much more.

He raises his head, meeting a pained look from Marco Bello.

His lips twitch, he almost closes his eyes, then backs away, gulping low.

“We're not a noble family, Marco, we... I am no different from you.”

Marco nods, moving away, “No man is different to god, but to other men they are a multitude of different difference.”

As the hand leaves his skin, Cosimo falls cold.

“I'll go down to chug some other wine. - Marco mumbles, his voice hoarse – Go to rest. I'll come later.”

“You'd need rest too.”

“I'll have enough.”

“Please... stay.”

“I can't.”

And to that, Cosimo can't insist.

He nods and moves to the bed, hoping to fall asleep quickly, as Marco steps down and goes to the common room of the tavern. Unfortunately, Cosimo doesn't fall asleep in the hours to follow, when Marco opens the door again and returns inside, half-drunk, landing on the bed with a thump.

Cosimo pretends to sleep already, not willing to stand or talk, and waits until he can hear Marco Bello snoring low next to him, his breath thick and warm on his neck, so close he can smell the wine.

But the little trench of air between their bodies is icy and sharp.

He is unsure what he wished for before, what he expected or wanted, but he knows the dissatisfaction burns in his chest and a need for something – a need that feels familiar and yet stranger because he can't name it – stings inside his mind like a glowing knife.

When Marco rolls and their backs touch, Cosimo realizes something new: he feels lonely.

It's not Bianca he misses, not really, because the feverish need to arrive to Rome dropped away from him, rather he wishes to just jump into something he can't name.

Like a jump in the Arno, but bigger, with his heart on his sleeve and no chains around his neck.

And he can feel he misses his father, somehow, which how could it be? He saw him just some days ago, didn't he?

Then why he feels he is betraying his memory or that he would look at him with scorn and resentment and anger?

Marco's warmth calms him and excites him together, it stirs his heart, makes his mind turbid. He wishes he could just wake up and find an answer drumming dimly in his mind.

 

*

 

The morning comes unkind and uneasy.

Cosimo washes himself with cold water from a closeby wheel near the stable and waits for Marco to come around. He was not in the room that morning, so, he figured, he probably went around to check the fastest route.

Marco actually arrives no earlier than one hour after, with a heavy bag, loaded with bread, fruits and a hay basket filled with eggs that they drink soon after, raw and fresh under the sun, while munching the bread.

“Figured you'd skip the warmed up soup for breakfast.”, he says, almost shy.

Cosimo smiles, nods and sinks his teeth in the bread, enjoying the gentle breeze of the morning in his face.

It doesn't take them long to return on the road, but the travel turns quickly into a series of detours, once to get grape, once to swim in a small river, once to greet some sheep. Cosimo takes every moment he has to enjoy and taste life as Marco didn't see him doing in so many years it cracks his heart open.

More than once, he wishes for the old Cosimo not to return back.

So he could be always happy, laughing, genuinely, hopeful.

More than once, he wishes for the old Cosimo to return already.

So they could roll on that grass and fuck against the rocks, as they did, when no witness would find them.

If he could he'd press his lips against his, roughly, bringing him close, slamming him in the dirt and seeing the flowers around his skin as he becomes stained like saint Francis roses and his voice gets freed under his touch.

And if he could, and if they could, he'd kidnap him – young or old – and take him away from every bond tightening around him as a hanging knot.

He wishes he could burn him, brand him his, like one could a horse.

Instead, that could never be.

Bianca, Contessina, Brunelleschi, even now that Maddalena – he was a constant and yet never an exclusive, like a servant that brings the stallion for rides when the lord isn't there to.

And it meant so much more to him, and it nauseated him when Cosimo accused him. How could he? While knowing how he felt?

There was something selfish in him, despite Cosimo having no sense of self anymore over his family, it reigns over them, dooming like a shadow. It was in his carelessness, in his naive, raw nature – he bent it with time, tamed it to fit into society and to follow his father's orders, but one could still see it, shining, as he took in Maddalena or talked with small kids or stood close to Brunelleschi as he projected the cupola.

There was a purity in him.

Not a kindness, not a sweetness, no – he was pure like the nature is pure in its force and majesty and power. He was like light, enlightnening and warming and blinding. His purity was a double edged sword who made him the most loyal of friends and the most terrible of enemies.

And Marco Bello has always loved that side of him, that rawness of his flesh and soul. But he did experience the cuts he could leave on himself at times, in how relentless and stubborn Cosimo could be...

Sometimes still too idealistic, despite the practical veil he wore over himself most of the time.

He knew how to be ruthless, despite his unwillingness to be.

Marco Bello, then, always took it also as his duty to be that, to do sometimes things Cosimo wouldn't have forgiven himself if he actually ordered, so Marco executed them before.

It was, in a way, an absolute necessity to keep Cosimo's health.

He could see how much his heart bent in guilt over the last efforts against Florence's families, which he himself had hopes he could cooperate with. Cosimo really sees in a way Florence as a child to groom and raise and let bloom, but also as a woman to adorn in jewels and presents; there is space for other loving parents or lovers, at times, but never for a different parenting view or a different way to love her.

He is still the boy loving Florence above everything else.

But now his fingers are no more stained in charcoal, rather in blood and gold foil and ink.

There is no space for the softness he once had in that reality, and yet... yet when he could see that boy again, peeking in from the art lessons to Maddalena, or the times he explained the history of art to Piero as he was no more than a child, in those times Marco Bello felt it all anew: the admiration for such a candid heart and the pain in seeing it bruised.

Bruised every day from a father too in love with his own plan.

Bruised from becoming the father with a plan soon after.

And as time moved further, Cosimo became more distant from himself.

Marco Bello sighs, thinking about how similar he and Contessina are, after all, looking and hoping for Cosimo to share his fragility with them, and getting drunk feeling blessed for just laying with him as if that intimacy were vulnerable enough to keep them alight and alive.

More than anything, he was a whirlpool.

He sucked them in and there was no way for them to survive him.

Since the first day they met, as Cosimo welcomed him in his house, finding him like a stray dog, wet of rain and mud, and taking him in.

 

*

 

“Marco Bello? - he laughs – That's a cocky name...”

A chuckle, “It is more common where I'm from.”

Cosimo wrings out the water from a rag and places it over Marco's arm, dirtied in mud and blood; it stings but warmth soon soothes the wound and with a low grunt Marco Bello swallows away the pain.

“And where are you from?”

Marco Bello doesn't reply, he lowers his look, hiding his glance on the bendages Cosimo is putting on. Fire sparks embers and fireflies of light in the dim room. Thunders outside break the sky to pieces and thrash and throw rain through the edges.

“Fine, wrong question. - he seems almost amused – Do you have a surname?”

No answer yet.

“Should I give you one?”

Marco Bello frowns and raises his head, “Am I a dog?”

“Would you be a good one?”

It takes him a moment for him to realize Cosimo is serious.

“A good family needs its trusted men, and you don't look like you have a better place to go to right now.”, he whispers, almost softly.

Marco Bello can't avoid staring at the lips of the boy, “A good family, you said?”

The boy lifts his eyebrows, as if he gets he is making a tempting offer to that stray dog drenched in rain. Marco Bello stares at him still doubtful, confused, almost.

“I am Cosimo de Medici.”

He heard of the father, Giovanni di Bicci, cold man of coal and steel, with more love for the abacus than for his own children.

“Why would you offer me this?”

“You don't have anything better. - he says, light-heartedly, shrugging his shoulders, before a shadow comes above his eyes – And I need men I can trust. Someone who'd answer to me and not to my father.”

Reasonable.

He nods, letting that motivation sink into him slowly through his skin like the warmth, “And what tells you I wouldn't strangle you here in this hayloft, get your money and run away?”  
“And survive with those what? Couple of weeks? - Cosimo has no wickedness in his eyes, he speaks simple and limpid like a child – Be my man, you'll survive until old age, put a cataract on your eyes and break your bones in winter.”

“And won't you banish me or throw me away in a fit or mood? - he mumbles, almost pouting – Like the one you are taking me in on?”

“Perhaps. It's still a good bet. - Cosimo says, then takes another rag and cleans again Marco's wounds, this time his forehead, where blood clenches dried on the base of his hair – If that makes sense to you, I feel we are very similar, you and I...”

Marco laughs.

“You? You look like a maid with a flower crown and have the smile of a child.”

Cosimo doesn't deny, he rather lowers his head, “I am young. There is no denying of that.”

Marco snorts, “Then which resemblance do you see, lord De Medici?”

“You look like you have a hard time liking yourself... - Cosimo whispers, soft yet blunt, his hand warm on his hair – And that, that I can understand well.”

“What is there not to like in yourself, little maid?”

Cosimo is not looking at him, rather at the empty air, but Marco Bello can sense a sadness in his look, a melancholic shade in the raw blue.

“It's hard to like what a parent tries to suffocate.”

“Parents are not always the wisest.”

“Neither are our own hearts. - Cosimo sighs – And I'm unsure how to follow both.”

“You need a priest not a henchman.”

“I need a brother I won't be in competition with. I need a friend. - Cosimo's eyes return on him, this time staring straight into Marco's ones – Can I count on you?”

Marco Bello sucks his bottom lip, meditating on that.

He can't fail to notice with those long soft curls, the big lips and eyes, he does look a bit like a fairy-tale knight more than like a banker's son.

Such an idealistic heart in a world like that was destined to end out poorly.

What a shame.

He chuckles, shakes his head, then stares back at him.

“Woff.”

 

*

 

“Cosimo, we have to go.”, Marco reminds him, as he is, once again, rolling in the grass, petting whatever moves and corresponds to the vague concept of 'cute'. It's beyond Marco's understanding how the kiddo could attract deer without scaring them, but there he is, playing nymph in the river bend with a couple deer eating from his hand.

He rolls his eyes.

“Do you remember the travel to meet again the love of your life?”

Cosimo laughs, poorly hiding a certain awkward and unexplained sadness and hesitation.

“Oh, but the animals...”

“Would you fancy one for dinner?”

Cosimo stares at him outraged, “No.”

“It's the same thing you ate at...”

“They don't need to know.”

“I doubt they caught it.”

Cosimo shakes his head and stands up, moving towards Marco Bello, the deer follow him – one pulling his shirt, one head-butting him – and puts the hands on his hips. 

“Why are you in such a rush to arrive?”

“Why are you not? - Marco questions – Do you think your beauty found a new lover?”

“She wouldn't have, not so quickly. - he replies, harsh – No, she is waiting for me, that I know, I'm just enjoying travelling with someone who is not my father and I'd appreciate if you didn't behave like him.”

“Then don't need me to.”

“That was disrespectful.”

“I don't understand why you fear so much to arrive in Rome.”

Cosimo lowers his head, “I don't either.”

Crows bark in the background, crossing the sky like sharp black daggers, the sun shines weak and pale, the water from the river seems to sing a low lullaby. One of the deer licks Cosimo's hand.

Marco comes closer to him, scaring the prey animal slightly.

He places a hand on Cosimo's waist, this time without any tremor or hesitation or detour.

“Don't be scared to understand yourself, Cosimo.”

“That's the only person I shouldn't be...”, he lets out in a sour chuckle.

“To me, that person is the most important.”, he blurts out.

Cosimo blinks, speechless.

His bottom lip quivers, “Marco?”

He frowns, perplexed, and Marco Bello can just swallow, his voice hoarser and muskier.

“You welcomed me when nobody would have...”

“You don't have to be grateful for that.”

“And yet- yes, I do.”

“You proved yourself worthy.”

Marco pulls him closer by the arm and, as he does, he curses himself, because that gesture is not as ambiguous as he hoped it to be.

“You are a dear... friend to me. More than an owner or a master. You are... - he curses himself more, then sighs – You are essential.”

Cosimo can't help but smile, the corners of his lips tensioning up and down; his eyes glance quickly on Marco's mouth.

He remembers the sensation of his breath, parting from that mouth and reaching his neck. He wishes for that mouth to touch his neck directly this time, to touch all of him. In a drunken, eager, hollowed out kiss.

“You are dear to me too...”

And Marco smiles, because that was also how he said it to him... the first real time.

“Then I may consider myself lucky. - he mumbles – Now, let's go, my lord, I am sure once there, you'll have the answers you need.”

Cosimo nods, moving towards the horses, his look set on the ground and his heart heavy with a unallowed, inunderstandable happiness.

 

*

 

They cross woods inhabited by the singing wind, they ford rivers of fresh crystalline waters, they rest in little taverns in squares doomed by big white churches and with dark metal wheels at the centre. They drop on hay or bed for the nights, always with Marco giving him also his blankets, and Cosimo rolling on his hip, giving the back to his companion, hoping for him to sleep against him and breathe on his neck before snoring and then falling in a silent sleep.

Night after night, Cosimo gets almost used to that warmth that arrives as soon as he pretends to be asleep and bathes into it and enjoys it greedily, sipping from the cup without questioning its content.

Marco's scent is soothing to him, calming, as he can't remember anything to be before.

It makes him feel safe as if his borders where watched and nothing could ever harm him.

Not even himself.

He just stays there, closes his eyes, pretends to sleep and then falls for real when Marco holds him and he finds in that brush that is barely a touch and more the ghost of a breath, of a presence, of a chance all of the warmth he needs.

Until the fourth night comes.

He closes his eyes and lays there, quiet, relaxing until his heartbeat slows down, let out small breaths from his nose and waits; Marco is scrolling a parchment scroll, browsing it quickly, up and down, right and left, under a weak candlelight, sitting next to him. Cosimo silently hopes he'd roll soon, but the parchment takes more of his attention and for minutes, there is no hint of movement from him. 

Then his hand softly goes on Cosimo's head and ruffles the hair and caresses them, roughly, not really gently, rather with a certain intimacy.

Cosimo can feel his heart speeding, throbbing uncomfortably in his chest and echoing in his throat and ears making him deaf to other sounds.

In the dead quietness of the night, Marco is caressing his hair with a rough affection and scared tenderness as if he knew each of his hairs and yet knew he shouldn't have had.

“I'm starting to miss you... - he whispers – Come back soon.”

He knew he had to be there, somewhere.

The Cosimo who loved him, who shared with him thick and thin, the one whom he shared many sultry nights with. He loves him too, this sweet boy with big doe eyes, who seems to have been just threatened from the world but not broken yet, he cares for him and yet- yet all he does is search in him the other Cosimo, the one he run his hands on and his mouth in, the one who stole his heart at once, the one who had made of what his father wanted of him an armour and a duty, but who melted in church or in front of art or in bed with him, unravelling and letting out all the light trapped under the cold iron.

That sweet boy doesn't even know who he really is, does he?

He closes his eyes and kisses his nape, softly, just a peek and rests his face against those soft curls. He pauses, resting his lips against the skin a bit longer, before separating again.

“I miss you like I'd miss my right hand.”

Cosimo is frozen, but his heart is on fire, burning alight and loud. Bright as the sun in the midday.

He'd like to turn, to ask an explanation, to demand it, but he just doesn't move.

His heart throbbing restless in his chest like deafening war drums, but he tenses and Marco Bello parts and frowns.

Silence is drenched and heavy, dark as the thick night between them.

“...Cosimo? - he swallows, voice cracked – Are you...?”

“Awake? Yes, I am.”

He moves away, ready to leave.

“I'll just...”

Cosimo turns; Marco is surprised in seeing he doesn't look horrified or angry, more confused, anxious if anything – he is upset, his eyes watery and the eyebrows inclined, his teeth on his lips, biting them.

“Don't go. - he almost roars – I forbid you to escape this conversation.”

“Cosimo, I...”

What was he supposed to say, honestly?

The truth? What if the shock would hurt Cosimo more? He sure is not the best with words, maybe Piero – yes, fuck, Piero – he'd know how to tell him nicely. That boy had more diplomacy in a finger than anyone else put together, still a mystery how he came out of those two headstrong parents... but he? Explaining Cosimo that mess? Laughable. And dangerous.

But which lie would have fit what he said, possibly?

He gulps down sourly.

Cosimo stares at him a minute longer and then shakes his head, throws himself forwards, grabbing Marco Bello's blouse and pulling it close as he catches his lips in his own.

He is hungry for him.

It burns inside him, it asks him to ask. It's dark and intense and essential.

He feels greed and eagerness take over him and like a lion he sinks his jaws into Marco's mouth, tasting him, devouring the sweet flavour of the finally accepted desire.

Marco is the sweet heat of full summer in Florence and he bathes in it as golden wheat falling under it.

Cosimo can barely part and flutter his eyelids that he has Marco's hands on his hips, struggling to untie his blouse and trousers, working his way through the leather and fabric, untying every knot.

He smiles, excited and hesitant, staring at him in delight.

Marco Bello, though, has much more of a serious expression and he pulls his face closer to him, pushing him on the nape against his lips, grabbing him, kissing him brutally and roughly.

Cosimo moans against the kiss and throws his arms around his shoulders, abandoning himself to him, offering himself.

Marco's hands are not soft, they are actually harsh and rough to the touch, but as they brush his skin and caress it, Cosimo just feels bliss as if he were made of feathers. His fingers sink into his flesh and grab him, kneading his ass through the thin wool pants.

Cosimo lets out a strangled moan, then a guttered groan as to invite Marco to continue.

Marco Bello takes the blouse away from his chest and starts kissing the pale pinkish skin, before almost gently, then rougher, nibbling, pulling the skin, then sucking it, like an animal,

Cosimo's nails run down his back, riding it and writing drenches of red as pleasure takes over him in one, two, three waves under aroused kisses and needy bites.

“Don't stop-”

“I won't. - Marco promises, interrupting him with a kiss – I won't.”

“I want you. - Cosimo whispers, cupping Marco Bello's face in his hands – I know, I know it's wrong, but I don't care anymore, I want you.”

Marco stops for a moment.

So, no, he didn't remember all of a sudden.

Did... did it start again? Was it bound to happen, after all?

Or that is what Marco Bello needs to tell himself to clean his own hands?

Ah, but sin tastes beautiful pouring out of Cosimo's mouth, dripping like liquid honey.

He grabs him, pulls him close, deepens the kiss, bringing Marco closer and closer, until their skin rubbing sets shivers down his spine and makes him arch and writhe against him.

“I want you...”, he repeats again.

Lord may have mercy on him.

Lord may have mercy on both of them.

But would have the lord been actually able to blame him for sinking his teeth in that tasty apple, shining red – violent red, and staring at him with languidly lascivious eyes?

 

*

 

“I heard you have a sister in Venice, whom you care deeply about.”

Marco Bello raises his head from the glass of wine, meeting Giovanni's stern icy eyes.

The old man sits next to him at the servants table, since nobody is around to witness it, and gives him a sly grin that reminds Marco of witches or dark cats.

“You've heard?”

“I asked the right people. - he seems to be giggling – Franceschina, if I'm correct?”

Marco grins nervously, trying to play it off and chuckles, “You very well know you are correct, my lord.”

“I have a favour to ask of you. - he says, speaking lowly – A favour which I need you not to speak to my son about.”

Marco Bello doesn't ask why he would do it nor does he precise that he takes orders solely from Cosimo.

To Giovanni those things don't matter, they never did.

“My son is developing a certain affection for this... plebeian girl, someone who clearly wants to exploit the family name and richness.”

Marco stiffens, he recognises in himself the green-eyed monster.

“You... - Giovanni mumbles, warm-voiced, handling to Marco a little bag – You will remind this kind girl what her priorities are.”

Marco's eyes shine in a wicked gleam, but it soon turns into bitter shame.

“What if she doesn’t accept this... reminder?”

Giovanni giggles again as if Marco told him a joke.

“Oh, dear, let's say I hope for her you'll be good enough at convincing her not to do something so absent-minded...”

 

*

 

Cosimo's smile is wide and he rubs against Marco's chest, keeping him close.

The hay stings slightly and the blankets truly are too small this time to cover both of them properly, but to be honest it doesn't really matter. In the fresh breeze of the chilled dawn, all Cosimo can feel is happiness.

He feels at home, he feels complete.

Marco's stubble tickles him and so does his hair, but he loves to kiss him, chest to jaw passing from the tense neck, playing a bit with his muscles and reactions.

“You have a big Adam's apple...”, he mumbles, finding it tender.

Marco Bello smiles, but his eyes are still closed.

“It's cause my sins are big and I chug on them fully.”

“I noticed you have a big mouth.”

“What an obscene comment for a lord.”

“I'm just stating the truth...”, Cosimo defends himself, poorly, grinning.

Marco laughs and his grip on Cosimo gets tighter, possessive. And Cosimo quite likes that.

His fingers play with the shadows and lights born and departed on Marco Bello's skin.

He is covered in scars – mostly small ones, not really invasive, but, oh, so many, little and piled up one over the other, thousand cuts from wounds or exercising or even war maybe.

He sighs, wishing they could both escape to somewhere else.

“I guess I found my answer before arriving to Rome...”

“About?”

“Why I was so afraid. - he sighs, closing his eyes and resting on his chest – I was afraid to discover that love was untrue.”

“Is it?”

“If I were in love, I'd be faithful. - he says, simply – The instant this happened, that meant she was not in my heart.”

Marco Bello chuckles bitterly, “You truly make it sound simple.”

“Don't you think it is?”

“Nothing important is easy. - he says, slowly, breathing in and then opening his eyes – Never.”

Cosimo laughs, “Kissing you is.”

“Exactly.”

 

**III.**

_Was he the one causing pain_

_with his careless dreaming?_

_Been afraid, always afraid_

_of the things he's feeling..._

 

_And how can I blame you_

_when it's me I can't forgive?_

 

The lights in the church spill gold, the scent of the oil lamps stings his senses, but it's the opening at the centre of the cupola that lets in the moonlight that catches Cosimo's attention.

Marco Bello strolls behind him, unsure if following and how closely.

Cosimo's eyes retrace the curve of the cupola and the shades of the shadows on marble and statues.

A temple for all the gods, perfect circle of fullness to encompass and include all of them... now a church for the holy Mary and her martyrs.

Because everything may change and nothing has the right to remain the same.

Just like him, after all. He will change too and he knows, and he fears it, because how will he forgive himself or his father or Florence itself, when he will renounce his dream to become a banker?

How will he be happy?

Sure, that is not a priority for his family and it's understandable. It's his puerile dream.

But how do you survive yourself when you dry your heart from all it’s blood?

How do you accept to wear a job, to wear a role, you can't feel not even in a shade of your being or a fibre of your skin? Doesn't the whole tapestry unravel? Doesn't the whole parade extinguish itself in silence?

How does one survive himself when that self is gone?

The tall, massive walls have no answer for him, nor the dark textured squares in the cupola, nor the hole the moon peeks in from, maternal and distant.

Maybe if his brother were still there...

Giuliano, Giuliano, if he didn't die they could have swapped places, perhaps.

Or he wouldn't have been alone.

His family crumbling in disaster now that his father and Lorenz... he shivers and stiffens, as a grim thought crosses his mind and, for a moment, he has the sensation to be actually and really alone.

No, he is not, that can't be.

“Let's go to sleep. - Marco Bello proposes, coming from behind – Tomorrow, we'll search for your friends.”

“Will we find them?”

“Shouldn't we?”

Cosimo's eyes flutter, his look glances on things, but he can't focus well.

“I'm not sure.”

“Are you afraid they left?”

“I feel like nothing is the same anymore.”

“I bet we can find them, my lord.”

“Cosimo.”

“Cosimo.”, he repeats, smiling.

The glittering twinkling of the glass paste and of the colourful marble under the lamps reminds him of something and Cosimo feels the ground leaving his feet.

An image remains in his head: a young boy, hair like his own, soft and curly, with little shoulders and a tender, sad smile. His feet squish a giant head.

“It's you, Cosimo. - Donatello's voice echoes in his head – It's your Florence, a Florence of art and grace... not your father's Florence.”

The young face of the boy stared at him intensely. The head of the giant morphs into his father's face, then disappears in the darkness, rotting bit by bit, earth and life crawling in the dead flesh.

His eyes fill with tears while his lip quivers and his chest clenches and twists.

If it could be, if it could be... if there was a way to live, a way to hope.

“Cosimo? - Marco whispers, holding him from behind, hands on his elbows – Are you feeling weak? Is it the legs again?”

“I'm fine... - his voice comes out strained – I, it's not the gout, don't worry.”

Marco puts an arm around Cosimo's knees, pats them and then tries to lift him.

“What do you plan to do? - he laughs – Take me like a maiden fair? I'll walk fine. Let's find a tavern closeby.”

Marco Bello shuts up and groans but accepts Cosimo's order and they find a small place where to sleep with the Dominicans at the Minervum. It was a century and more they were trying to build a church supra Minerva there, but the architects seemed to still not have finished.

Marco Bello lies to them and says they are simple merchants, the last thing he wants is the order to name Saint Marco's convent and Cosimo's fame. He wants to avoid him every troublesome thought.

Yet, he knows he is putting himself at a dead end.

The Dominicans offer to the two a little room with two beds, and they handle them a rosary and one promises to warm up some milk for them to eat in the common room.

In fact, they overdo as one could in their condition, and Cosimo manages to have warm milk and soft fresh bread. A monk offers to give a look to his junctures and prepare him some herbal pomade to reduce the inflammation and the pain derived from the gout.

Cosimo has no heart to deny again help and lets them take a look at his legs.

“It must run in the family, for you to have it so advanced.”

“Oh don't say so! - the other monk corrects him – He is no young lad, he is a man all done, it's not that early. May his children be spared.”

“I'd avoid feeding them too much meat. - the other agrees – It's good for a merchant to have enough of it to feed a family, but sure, look, this is to be avoided.”

Cosimo tries not to focus on someone calling him a man all done and not young, but the worm is inside his head and torments him until he then bursts, nervously.

“...I know these vanities are not for monks, but do you happen to have a mirror?”

Marco stops eating his bread, “Cosimo, I-”

“A mirror? Like a reflecting surface? Hm... - they pause – I think we have one in the monstrance's case. It was a gift from a cardinal.”

“We bring it, but be delicate, it's an object of great value and it is sacred.”

“Don't worry... - Cosimo whispers, now turning a stern look at a panicking silent Marco Bello – I won't need it for more than a moment.”

They all agree it sounds like a good idea and they promise to go get it, while Marco stands up and rushes to Cosimo.

“I'm not sure it's a good idea.”

“What is there you are not telling me? - he clenches his jaw – I keep feeling like something is off, but...”

“Cosimo, I... - a groan – I don't know how you'll take it, if it's a good idea for you to know.”

He stiffens.

Then really there was something that he was hiding from him.

It burns the bottom of his stomach.

“You hit your head in the church. The physician said something is wrong with it or the humours or, well, point being... you forgot it, but years passed.”

“Years?”, he almost screams.

Marco Bello lowers his head and sucks his lips, “Your father paid Bianca to leave you and made you marry Contessina de Bardi.”

Cosimo gulps and swallows.

Anger, disgust, distrust, wrath.

“That woman I spoke to... I'm her husband.”

Marco nods, ashamed.

“How could you not tell me? - he squints his eyes and groans – You of all people...”

“I-”

“I trusted you with my life, with my … of all the people, I thought on you I could count.”

Marco lets out a suffocated chuckle, “You don't even remember us.”

“Excuse me?”

“You think the time in the tavern was the first? - his voice is harsh in resentment – It's sixteen years we're lovers.”

Cosimo frowns, confused, yet mortified – he recognises something in Marco Bello's eyes which he didn't think he would have seen any soon: pain. Genuine, absolute, heartfelt pain.

It was important to Marco.

He was important to Marco.

“A..I... - he swallows up, his voice coming out all hoarse – I am married to... that woman and we...”

“Yes, we... - he looks to make sure no monk can hear them – We fuck, Cosimo.”

“Why would I do that, she is... do we have children? Where is my father?”

Marco's Adam apple drops and he sighs.

He doesn't have the time to try again to reply, because Cosimo stands up and runs away from the room as if he needed air and was about to suffocate.

 

*

 

He remembers being small, tiny, with skinny fingers and the legs stained by a constellation of bruises and scratches collected playing in the vineyards and the gardens. Pomegranates and grape hanged mature and full from their leaves and the sun shone tender, breaking stones and cradling the dogs.

He would still play in the river, wash his face from the dirt and refreshing his feet and hands from the burning and scorching heat making his skin warm and glimmering in sun drops.

Lorenzo would laugh and jump between the nettle and the blackberries. His hands would fill in thorns but his lips would be all stained with a delicious bruised purple sugary shade.

Their mother looked at them calmly and yet distantly, as a guard, their father instead would nap and snore slightly under the sun, grape in his hands, rolling out of the fingers as his chest would swollen and raise.

It was those summers he'd remember the dearest.

The smouldering Florence Augusts would bring him those joys that often the rest of the year didn't allow.

His father...

He misses him so.

He misses all he could have been and he never was and all the things they could have shared and never managed to.

He can't bring himself to forgive him nor to like him, and yet he can't bring himself not to love him with every bone and skin fragment he has.

He pants, staring at his reflection on the dirty surface of the Tiber.

“Did we... did we manage to make peace before? - he breathes labouring – Or did we resent each other so deeply I just wanted to forget I couldn't get over it?”

Birds crack the sky with their harsh songs. The river carries away the moonlight.

“She went away... - he laughs – And I became a banker... you won, you took it all.”

His hands tremble.

Cosimo wonders when the last time he used charcoal or paint was, when the last time he mixed pigments or scratched paper was.

He wonders when he gave up art, when he lost that part of him that was filling creation overflowing from his chest and veins like water or light.

Cosimo sighs, staring at the wrinkles on his hands.

A chocked laugh comes out of his lips.

Maybe he really was not destined to ever be anything more than a banker...

His father took everything away from him: art, a lover, freedom. But he let him, he allowed him to do that, maybe out of fear or perhaps for affection. Regardless, he allowed him to – and that, that he couldn't forgive to himself.

And yet he realizes that the fault was in his father's hands.

Not Marco Bello's. Not the wife’s he was cold to. Nobody but them two: his father and him.

Cosimo swallows, takes a stone and throws it in the river, watching it drown.

 

*

 

“It's you, Cosimo. - Donatello laughs – It's your Florence, a Florence of art and grace... not your father's Florence.”

Cosimo shakes his head, “My father would have been able to appreciate your talent too, Donatello.”

“Appreciate? He would know it could be useful for propaganda, but that's it. - he shakes his head – Appreciating art is different, Cosimo.”

“You are very strict. Some Florentines are bankers, they are uneducated to beauty.”

“No human soul is uneducated to beauty, many inhuman souls are, though, very good at masking themselves and beauty is a good trap to see them.”

Cosimo chuckles, “Donatello, Donatello, you never change.”

“Neither do you. - he smirks – You just dress yourself all up to hide yourself well.”

“I'll take that as a compliment.”

“It was mostly a sad confession, in all honesty.”

Cosimo frowns, “I was not cut out to be an artist, I lacked the talent.”

“Many lack talent, Cosimo, what you lacked was the choice. - he smiles – I always believed in you.”

“That was your miscalculation and overestimation of my skills.”

“...or of your courage, Cosimo. - he smiles, sadly – Regardless, I find you happier these days.”

“Do you?”

“You seem unhappy, don't get me wrong, yet happier. - he laughs – Is there a special someone in your life lately?”

Cosimo coughs and Donatello's eyes gleam and glance at Cosimo's back, beyond which, far away, near a doorstep that leads inside the house, he can spot Marco Bello.

Of course...

“I can't wait to finish this statue, though, it is somewhat of a labour. It tires me.”

Cosimo shakes his head and gives a tender smile, “I'm sure Contessina would have something to complain about in your metaphor.”

“She often has to complain about things for what I see.”

“She is a very opinionated woman.”

“Like Bianca was. Very manly in their brutality. - he looks away, the edge of his eyes returning to the door step – But for how I see, you always needed someone quieter, who'd be by your side, rather than someone who'd complain and fight with you. You are not really good at managing confrontation.”

“...well, isn't our tongue sharp today?”

“Can I speak freely?”

“Haven't you been?”

“I'm glad for whoever is making you feel happier in this awfully sad situation. - he mumbles – Don't feel guilty just because of what some bigots will tell you. Love is not about rules.”

“I thought you liked rules...”

“I like only the rules I don't want to break.”

Cosimo laughs, “Well, that's everyone.”

“Perhaps. - he smirks – Perhaps.”

“Not everyone is as brave as you are, though.”

“I wouldn't define it bravery, I'd say rather I perfectly know I do not matter much. - he laughs – My life is limited, at the end of it, I'll be counting the good and the bad, if something makes me happy and makes the good dish heavier for the scale, then I won't give it up...”

Cosimo turns to Marco Bello and smiles.

“Happiness is rare, Cosimo, managing to keep it is rarer.”

“Thank you, my friend, I'll remember your words.”

 

*

 

When Marco finds him, he is laying on the irregular stones near the Tiber, as if about to fall asleep. His feet are caressed by the cold yellow turbid waters, and he throws into them stones, watching them jump and skip on the surface.

Marco Bello reaches him jumping down to him and rushes, but then slows down until he stops and just stares at Cosimo without daring to move or speak.

It's Cosimo who speaks, without turning to him, “I'm sorry I ran away, I must have worried you.”

Marco lets out a sigh that turns almost in a bitter laugh, “You were always a bit of the emotional kid.”

His breathing seems regular but in there is a whistle, almost sad, almost heavier than the rest. Marco Bello sits next to him, observing his lover and lord throwing the stones in the river.

“I put you through something hard, didn't I?”

“Cosimo, you shouldn't feel guilty.”

“I don't. - he makes it clear, blurting – But I feel I have to acknowledge I am not sure how I'd manage the situation of someone losing their memory and not even remembering me... well, us.”

“You would have done better...”

“Probably. - Cosimo laughs – You are more rational, until it's about those you love, then you become a clumsy child.”

Marco smiles, endeared, and caresses Cosimo's cheek with the back of his hand.

“I am.”

“You love me, don't you?”

“Always did.”

Cosimo lets out a snicker, “That is a bit flattering.”

“I should have told you kindly about Bianca...”

“I don't think it's her I was grieving. - he mumbles – I miss art, Marco.”

“I know...”

“...when is it the last time I drew?”

Marco Bello smiles, sadly, “You gave me a painting for the 25 th of April...”

“... your name-day.”

“Yes. - he grins – It's beautiful.”

“So I do still.”

“Sometimes. But not often and I mostly need to kick your ass into believing in yourself.”

“It probably hurts me to do it.”

“It hurts you also not doing it.”

Cosimo smiles against Marco Bello's hand and breathes in, sweetly.

“So I didn't become just a banker.”

“You were never just that, Cosimo. You never will be.”

Cosimo stares at Marco Bello's lips, he stares at him and then gulps down.

“...I kind of want you right now.”

“I am not sure we can commit sodomite acts in a monastery...”

Cosimo's eyes widen and his lips quiver a bit, “Oh, come on, they won't notice!”

“You won't convince me!”, Marco Bello half yells realizing how more dangerous Cosimo was as a younger, cuter version with absolutely no problem in making baby faces. God damn him.

Cosimo grins, wicked.

“Oh, I think I can...”

 

*

 

Cosimo forces Marco Bello to gain forgiveness for his lack of information by having him visit every Rome church, temple, archaeological spot they find. He almost buys a sarcophagus together with three roman statues. Marco Bello bears it, snoozing between the tours and observations.

He'd rather watch Cosimo being all bright and enthusiastic than anything else.

In the next three days, Marco Bello updates Cosimo on what happened in his life in the years past; and, between kisses and tears, Cosimo seems to start putting pieces together, one by one, but not able to remember fully. He does remember some things, like torn pieces of conversations or some events.

Marco Bello is unsure of what to do at that point, if to suggest more or not.

He considers introducing him to Donatello or actually searching for Bianca, or bringing him to his father's tomb.

He'd do anything at that point.

A part of him thought that maybe when making love after a while Cosimo would have remembered; it came not truly as a surprise, though, that he seemed more eager to come than interested in the atmosphere or the gestuality of their little forbidden rituals.

They returned to Florence with calm; Marco had hoped for Cosimo to remember before, but he prepared him enough and Cosimo tried to elaborate everything quickly, not resting or pondering over stuff, despite how it pained him.

In a way, it was weird to hear all of these fights with Lorenzo, how strained it was with him lately, or how he couldn't care for understanding his wife or how he cheated on her, it was weird to think he had a son and loved him, but how insecure he felt. He found out all his mistakes quickly and harshly, for how Marco Bello tried to be delicate he was always himself, after all, like one would discover the corrections of a master on his writing exercises.

It feels distant and unreal.

He can't feel them.

He feels mortified, though, hearing them and thinking a part of him could be so cold and so similar to his own father. Maybe that is what age does to you, it kills the tenderest part and leaves bones and harshness.

Marco Bello, though, is a constant.

He is perpetual, he is close, he is holy and present and true.

There is not a memory without him, not a part of time where he was not there with him to support and help and sometimes scold. There is not a moment in which Marco Bello didn't bring him to be a better man than he was.

And Cosimo knows that, he realizes that, because he feels him.

Although he can't remember, although he can't recognize gestures or tales, he finds no harshness in his movements no matter how sudden, they all seem smooth and familiar. And his presence brings him calm and when he goes far away for a moment Cosimo gets nervous and feels suddenly lonely and lost.

He knows that presence, he knows that belonging.

Of two people together who never could actually part, but that will return one to the other, magnetized and truly bond behind their flesh with their souls.

They belong together and Cosimo knows.

He has no difficulty in thinking of him as a lover of years, despite the natural start as a surprise, he knows it'd be weirder the opposite.

He somehow trusts that man way more than he probably should, given the situation.

And yet, there he was.

And due to trusting him so deeply, he is afraid – how will he be this new Cosimo? How will he act until he remembers? How will he look at a wife in the eyes or at his own son?

Where will he find the courage to own up to the actions of a self he can't remember becoming?

He watches the nature around them blooming and dying, life and death all the same, always sharing the picture – the birds singing devour worms from the earth, the reddening juicy apples fall on the ground for the rabbits to sink their teeth into before a fox will do the same, and between trees full of coloured leaves there are those that are sick and broken and beyond a wood there would be a dry patched up mass of dead grass.

There is nothing sacred, there is nothing pure.

All is just what it is and it's shades of grey that can't turn nor white nor black for how much one tries to hope they would.

Maybe that is also what time does to you: it gives you eyesight and perspective.

And he turns to Marco Bello and he sees his greyish hair and his greyish eyes and he knows though that those greys are colours. And that those blue eyes are deeper and more vivid and colourful than any other colour mixed with pigments, crumbled out of stones, taken from fruits.

Lapis lazuli blue is beautiful and it is, after all, fake.

No sky is that colour, no Madonna's eyes.

The light blue turning to the iced green of surfaces of lakes of Marco Bello's eyes, that impure colour was real.

And it was something he couldn't perceive before.

“Tell me...”

Marco Bello turns, “Yes?”

Cosimo stares at him, their horses nuzzle and head-butt, as he rides closer.

“Have I ever made a portrait of you?”

“Not really. - he laughs – I am not a good view, so...”

“You are. - he pouts, then takes the reins again and quickly turns - I will, once home I will.”

A portrait with that colour, so real, he will create it and use it.

And it won't be as bright and as intense as the skies with golden stars and the blood red mantels of the Holy Kings, but it will shine of what his life is and which colours actually pour light and joy in it.

There is a happiness he can't express just yet.

But Cosimo feels lighter, his chest filled with brimming glimmering light.

He feels charged and feathered and he can now look at the man he became and, if not forgive, understand. 

He is neither white nor black, he is a multitude of things that gave him colours he can't know yet. And his life in his hands can become what he will make of it.

It will be full, it will be happy.

He kicks Patrizio and sets him to the gallop.

The breeze in his hair makes them feel long and free again. The grey hair doesn’t feel hard anymore, but softer and kinder. 

He smiles against the wind and yells atop of his lungs.

His laughter echoes in the country skies and Marco Bello looks at him enchanted and surprised.

There is something in between boy and man, he figures, someone who is both and none. Someone who is happy.

 

*

 

He dismounts the horse smiling and runs to hold Contessina, who stays there, petrified, almost under shock. She blinks quickly, her skin so pale and her voice trembling.

“Are you, are you alright?”

“I've never felt better. - he grins, then turns and sees a young beautiful pregnant lady with curls of a sweet autumn colour, melting chestnut and gold and a boy with a big nose and a scared yet smart expression – Lucrezia, Piero, seeing you again fills me with joy.”

Piero grins and hugs him.

“Oh, father, we were so worried! You left without even telling us.”

“I'm sorry, it was urgent. - he smiles – But I am sure you can also manage the bank on your own now, you are a man and one for a father to be proud of.”

Piero lights up, shining in joy, and Lucrezia grins, holding his hands happily and looking at him as to say “see, I told you he thinks so”. Contessina turns to Marco as to ask if... and he shakes his head, but seeing him so close to their sons, for an instant, Contessina is relieved just like that.

Lucrezia then returns inside, bringing Piero with her, precising they’ll go to tell Ugo and the others about the arrival. Contessina turns to Cosimo, smiling, “Thank you, it meant a lot for him.”

“I was being honest. - he smiles back – Marco informed me of how things were and are and... and that boy should have known I love him very much.”

Her eyes seem watery and he takes her hands in his own and holds her close.

“You were good and kind. He told me of your patience and I saw it too... even if this marriage was not one of love, it will be of affection and admiration, that, I can grant.”

She nods, between the tears, then lets go of her manners and holds him tight, running her hand through his hair and nape, calling his name between sobs.

Cosimo caresses her back, then looks at Marco and he sees him smiling proud.

If Cosimo just had known that forgiving himself would have made him forgive every wrong he felt others gave him... he would have done that long ago.

“Later, I want us to go to my father's grave, I owe him a goodbye.”

“I will tell Piero after lunch. - she promises – …seeing you like this, I never thought you could be so serene.”

“It took time. - he looks at Marco Bello – And... I am not informed if you...”

She curls up her lips, “I guessed. And it's less bothersome than what you did with that slave and, oh, dear, I shouldn't speak so...”

“You can speak as you please. - he smiles – Everyone should. I don't want anyone anymore to suffocate themselves.”

“Is there something I could do for you?”

“Yes. - he smiles – Send a servant to call Donatello and Brunelleschi, we'll have them for dinner tomorrow, and make someone bring me pigments and papers and, oh, and brushes.”

She seems to light up, “You'll paint, Cosimo?”

“I will. Us all. - he looks at the villa, smiling – I was so busy thinking how this life was not what I wanted and how broken my heart was that I forgot both what made me happy of it and both that I can bring my old happiness into this present.”

“That sounds very wise, my lord.”, she mocks him a bit.

He kisses her forehead, protectively.

“A wise lady once told me men are social animals, we do need each other.”

 

*

 

“Aaah... - he moans in distress – Finally out.”

He falls with his back on the bed and Marco Bello chuckles, standing up, “I'm sorry it took long.”  
“Those boots are killers. I hate to have to ride. I couldn't wait to take them off.”

Marco Bello shakes his head, “You did good with Contessina today, you were kind.”

“Well, I figured she deserved that much...”

“Did you remember anything upon returning?”

“Some stuff, it's all returning very slowly, in bits and pieces. No big revelation.”

“I see... - he tilts his head and smiles – Maybe it's better like this. Imagine if you then forgot all that happened in the travel.”

“That would have been quite troublesome. - he sighs – How did you bear with such a cold lover?”

“You were not cold. - he smiles – You were hurt, like a wounded animal.”

Cosimo raises an eyebrow, “ ...I didn't know you had such a soft spot for the weak.”

“I have a soft spot for cute things.”

“Ah-a. - he grins, pulling Marco Bello on him – I have a soft spot for dark, ruffled grumpy henchmen, instead.”

“Hm, that is a bit too vague for my taste.”

“With a terribly cocky name.”

“Better. - he smiles, catches Cosimo's lips in his own and kisses him quickly – I'm glad you feel better about... all of this.”

“I do.”

“Cosimo... - he sighs, breathing in – There is one last thing you need to know.”

Cosimo frowns, confused.

“When I found you in the church, we were not being... serene. - he sighs, looks away – You thought I killed your father and accused Lorenzo and banished me... I was coming back when I found you in the dome.”

Cosimo nods, sucking his lips, “Why would you return? If I weren't convinced by your reasons, I could have had you killed.”

Marco Bello almost laughs metallically, “You lost your brother! How could have I left you alone?”

Cosimo pulls him down and kisses him eagerly, pushing his tongue through Marco's lips and tasting him again, immersed in his scent and in the warmth of feeling him close.

Marco caresses his hair softly.

“I needed to, to be close to you, to comfort you.”

“Thank you... - he smiles, shaking his head, whispering right close to the edge of Marco Bello's mouth – You never left me alone.”

“I would have never done that. - he grins – You are my master.”

“Good boy.”

Marco stares at Cosimo very seriously before bending his lips a bit upwards and letting out a very deep and very amused “Woof!”.

Cosimo snorts and kisses him again, hungry for him and for all that he filled his life with. He can't stop wanting him, needing him, as if he suddenly could feel all the distance they had and all the time they had to bear separated during that misunderstanding.

He moves his finger on Marco's chest.

“So, I suppose, we should now make peace?”

Marco glances at him, serious, “Absolutely.”

Rays of light enter in the room and fill it with gold and shine.

It brightens the wood and the mirrors and the dust and the silks. It brightens the house and the paintings and the void and the life.

It brightens them, sharing a bed, whispering to each other “I love you” as if not a single day passed from when pain tore them apart.

Marco's rough hands rush on Cosimo's soft ribcage, pull the flesh and his skin. His teeth run on the neck, leaving rushed masks of hushed deep purple. Cosimo's moans ride the air, climb up to the ceiling until Marco grabs his face and sinks his tongue into him, filling his mouth to the brim and making his voice choked up. Cosimo's eyes shine in bliss as he feels the blood rushing to his groin and moves against Marco's body right over him, brushing their groins, mischievous and needy at the same time.

Marco tears open Cosimo's trousers, making him whine a complaint that never arrives to formulation, rather at a tiny revenge, as the lord does the same to Marco's blouse and then digs his fingers into his back, seeing Marco arch, beastly, grunting, tightening up his grip and deepening the kiss at the pain mixed with pleasure.

Cosimo's blue eyes gleam in a sly, knowingly smile.

He grins when Marco Bello parts from the kiss.

“You little brat...”

“I missed you. - he bites his bottom lip – Don't you dare make me send you away ever again.”

Marco Bello laughs low and kisses Cosimo's collarbones, going down to his chest and nibbling and kissing the skin. Cosimo lets out strangled little sounds, humping and bucketing against him, impatiently.

He can feel the touch of Marco's scorching hands, the eager greed in his bites – there is something addicting in the way he just knows his body, he feels completely lost in his hands.

Marco separates Cosimo's legs and starts stroking him, making Cosimo jolt up and half-scream. In a moment, Marco Bello's left hand is over Cosimo's mouth, shutting him up and suffocating every little moan and shout coming out of that lewd mouth.

Cosimo glares, but enjoys it quite too much and more than he thought he would have.

Marco's other hand rides Cosimo's cock, stroking it, up and down and under that touch Cosimo twitches and squirms, desperately. Marco chuckles in elation, gaining a grunt and a bite on his fingers.

Cosimo rolls his eyes to the back of his head, feeling his cock throbbing and pleasure pooling into his balls. He can just perceive jolts shaking his legs, weakening him as if his bones melted away.

He lets out whined moans that die as a warm breath against Marco's hand, while he reaches full hardness. 

“I won't let you go ever either.”, Marco promises.

He lets the erection go for a moment, earning a big moan of protest, to grab a bottle of oil for the body that Cosimo still had near the bed for treating the head wound.

He pours some directly onto Cosimo's throbbing reddened erection and lets it drop up to his twitching opening.

Cosimo almost get stained in embarrassment realizing how much he wants Marco inside, feeling his body welcoming him again, his walls strained around him.

Marco leaves his mouth and uses both hands this time to delightfully torment Cosimo. One of his hands keeps stroking and jerking him, the other, slowly, circles his flesh, gently moving against it.

He puts two fingers in and Cosimo arches and whines, letting his voice unravel in a wet obscene moan of approval.

Cosimo's hands rush to Marco's hair, pulling him closer, making him grin. He is so cute when he gets offended for how aroused he is...

Marco kisses his cheekbones and pushes another finger through and bends them, starting to search for the spot that sets Cosimo on fire every night they share.

When he finds it, Cosimo stays there, chocked, for a moment, then arches and turns feverish, shaking and panting.

Sweat shimmers on his skin, his lips trembling and quivering, all wet, voice honeyed and breathy. He scratches in protest and clings in desire, moving himself against Marco, riding his fingers to fuck himself mad.

Marco pours oil on his erection too, rubbing it against Cosimo's thigh.

Cosimo shivers and jerks, coming as he manages to hit his prostate and Marco pushes against it ruthlessly, pressing it until Cosimo feels blinded and orgasms.

Marco Bello should probably allow him truce or rest, but he is too aroused.

He enters, pulling him open, tensing him up. Cosimo's nails dig into him and he lets out a relieved groan of pleasure as he can feel himself filled up completely. His voice extinguishes after in a panted wet moan.

Marco thrusts completely in, having Cosimo welcome his whole length with a series of flamed alight moans and needy whines.

Marco Bello takes his lover's legs and pulls them up, keeping them by the ankles, and rests his head against Cosimo's collarbones, between that and the neck, while pushing in and thrusting quicker and stronger. Cosimo lolls his eyes, feeling his thighs and cheeks redden at Marco's slams and his ankles getting signed by his strong hands pressing on them.

He shouts and begs and his voice gets creamy and hot, thrust after thrust, push after push. Marco shags him open and full, hitting his prostate again.

He writhes, squirms, tries to hold it longer, but comes again – sperm stains their abdomens, while he tightens up around Marco's shaft, making him emit a strangled, delicious grunt.

Cosimo grins in victory and moves more against him, pleasuring Marco by letting him all in and tightening around him until he could feel constricted and engorged against the raw sensitive flesh of Cosimo's ass. Marco bites his bottom lip and slams in again and again, his head hitting Cosimo and his shaft pulsing and throbbing inside him.

He thrusts automatically, uncontrolled, rough and eager to come too. He indelicately brings Cosimo fully against him, pulling his hips. He pulls and thrusts, coming into him with a deep-voiced grunt.

Cosimo smiles, “...mine.”

Marco agrees, breathless, “Yours.”

The light of the stars shimmers in the room, as they sleep holding each other, naked, bathing in the peace of the love-filled afterglow.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
